Review ILLDISPOSED “In Chambers of Sonic Disgust”

Danish heavyweights Illdisposed are among the veterans when it comes to heavy metal from the north. Founded in 1991, the band from Aarhus has released numerous albums, but it took a while before the band announced a new longplayer with “In Chambers of Sonic Disgust”.

The previous album “Reveal Your Soul for the Dead” was released in 2019, and now, five years later, the band returns with an eleven-song longplayer. There are several reasons why the band needed some time to finish their latest work. The pandemic of course had an effect on the production time, but the band was also hit by another stroke of fate when guitarist Rasmus Henriksen was diagnosed with brain cancer. A 100% focus on treatment was the understandable consequence. The search for a replacement brought former Illdisposed guitarist Ken Holst back into the band and work on “In Chambers of Sonic Disgust” could be brought to the finish line.

The new album features all the band’s trademarks. The growled vocals of Bo Summer, the twin guitar work of Batten and Holst, together with the groove providing rhythm section of Onkel K. Jensen and Rasmus Schmidt lead to songs that are heavy and sinister. At the same time, the band embeds melodic guitar leads that provide a bit of a distraction from the ultimate heaviness that echoes through songs like the massive ‘The Ill-Disposed’.

Illdisposed shift gears with ‘Start Living Again’, which is a bit faster than some of the other parts of this release, and things get even faster with ‘And of My Hate’. The song comes out of the gate at a blistering pace and blends melodic death metal with some thrash metal spice.

Illdisposed deliver a rock solid new album. There might not be one or two real highlights on this album’s track list, but it is the consistency of quality that makes “In Chambers of Sonic Disgust” a dark and grooving metal record.